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Site Design: Epicurrence 2016(epicurrence.com)

8 years ago from Patrick Wong, Design Manager @ Lyft

  • Dirk HCM van BoxtelDirk HCM van Boxtel, 8 years ago (edited 8 years ago )

    This is an interesting post, especially with the edited-in-disclaimer being bigger than the original blurb :)

    I think it's our jobs as designers to - when we put up a piece of work - take the interpretations other people present to us and try to empathize, but not over-react.

    As such, I think your initial comment was spot on, and your edit more so still. And together they present what the thought process should be for anyone that receives critique.

    This reminds me of Henry Ford's "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses". Not in the sense that people don't know what they want, but that you should take any comments within the context of what these people represent. Do they represent someone who's informed about the subject matter? Are they highly critical of said matter, or fans of everything related to it? Or are they random passer-bys that have no clue what you're talking about?

    Empathy is our superpower... and the occasional grain of salt our secret weapon ;)

    9 points
    • Yitong ZhangYitong Zhang, 8 years ago (edited 8 years ago )

      I can't upvote this enough. Thanks for coming out and saying that, Dirk. I completely agree with you. There's an old model of communication that goes something like:

      Sender -> encoding -> message -> decoding -> recipient

      As designers, our job is not only to encode products so that the our users have as little to decode as possible, but also to do reverse. Decoding the user feedback is also hugely important.

      1 point